


when the dawn comes, i'll be waiting

by Marianne_Dashwood



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Canon, Smoking, this is super sad beware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10056764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: They find Noctis’s body on the throne, as if he would be anywhere else. Light is streaming through the hole in the side of the throne room, actual, honest to god light, and it hurts all of their eyes. Ten years of perpetual darkness will do that to you.OrA study in what life was like after they lost the one person they had already mourned once.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up, I cried so much writing this, the keyboard went blurry. 
> 
> I've seen a lack of post-canon fic (or maybe i'm just blind) and I desperately wanted some. So I wrote it. 
> 
> Listening to this song while writing it is advised but not necessary- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKj80FDqNsU

They find Noctis’s body on the throne, as if he would be anywhere else. Light is streaming through the hole in the side of the throne room, actual, honest to god light, and it hurts all of their eyes. Ten years of perpetual darkness will do that to you. 

They knew. They knew from the moment he came back, from the moment he spoke to them on the stairs. 

He had told them to walk tall, but it is with slouched shoulders and deflected faces that they enter the throne room. 

All three of them are beaten and bruised. Gladio is limping. Prompto’s arm is bleeding heavily, with a scrap from Ignis’s uniform acting as a makeshift bandage to staunch the flow. 

Noct looks ten years older than he should, but then they all do. He should never have been this pale; Death, they know, does not reflect life. 

They have watched a lot of people die. 

As if they are compelled, they make their way to the dias. Prompto, mind always wandering, wonders what Noctis felt when he walk up these steps. Ignis hopes without reason, because he has to have something, and he knows from the silence that there is no hope at all. 

Gladio reaches the throne first. From a distance, it would have been easy to pretend that the sword wasn’t buried deep inside his friend, but now there is no mistaking it. When he takes Noctis’s hands, they are cold. 

Prompto cries and cannot stop. Ignis trembles with his own suppressed sobs. Gladio’s face is stone. He is the one to remove the sword, and Prompto hold Noctis in his arms, weeping openly onto his still, lifeless chest. Ignis takes Noctis’s face in his hands and runs his fingers through everything that is both familiar and unfamiliar. Ignis never got to tell him to shave. 

The sun rises. It doesn’t feel like it. 

The world doesn’t end, but it feels like it does. 

Gladio is the one to carry him out of the hall, and down the steps to the city. Ignis is surprised to already hear the sounds of people in the city, the shouts and cheers. Prompto wipes his eyes, and squints into the sun. 

They have a lot of work to do. 

The three of them bury Noctis in a secluded hollow about a mile from Insomnia. It’s not in a cave, like many of his ancestors, but rather a small meadow carved out from the rock, only accessible through a small rocky passageway. They bring sylleblossoms from Tenebrae, and undisturbed, the flowers flourish, even in the harsh Lucien winters. 

The official tomb is near the citadel, and it is one of the first buildings to be built. The people wish to pay homage to their King. 

Ignis, despite his lack of sight, oversees the redevelopment of the city. The only major change is the removal of the Wall itself, and the city sprawls as a result, as people from all nations come and settle. 

Prompto gets drunk in seedy bars that Gladio has to pull him out of at 3am, and they both cry until they fall asleep. 

Ignis has his work, but what use is Gladio, the Shield without a King? He buried his King, buried  his life’s duty, his  _ friend _ , in a lonely meadow with sylleblossoms and now he must move on from that. 

For Prompto, it takes a long time to realise that there is more to life than being devotedly loyal. These months without Noctis turn into years, just as they did the first time. 

“He’ll come back!” He slurs, the bottle in his hand smashing onto the floor when his grip loosens. Ignis starts a little at the noise. “He came back the first time, he’ll come back.”

“Prom…” Gladio says, heartbreak in his voice. “Prompto, he’s not coming back.”

“YES HE WILL!” Prompto half-screams, throat raw, though from the alcohol or from the sobs he doesn’t know. “You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you couldn’t even protect him, how could you know-”

Here is something that is new, now that Noctis is gone; Prompto becomes cruel when he drinks. It never used to, but then he grew up from that kid who, with Noctis, snuck into Gladio’s drinking cabinet and told bad puns when he got wasted.

“Stop it.” Ignis says, voice cold. “Prompto, you’ve had enough.” 

Prompto gives a cry of protest when they pull him back from reaching for another bottle. 

“No!” 

Gladio steers his stumbling body towards the bathroom. “Come on, Prompto, you’re going to get some sleep and you can regret what you said later.”

“I don’t regret it.” Prompto says, like a petulant child. “It’s your fault, you failed him, it’s your fault he’s dead, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

Gladio punches him. Prompto lands on the floor, blood oozing from a split lip, gazing up at Gladio in shock. Gladio is breathing heavily, and Ignis quickly stands to place himself between him the moment he hears the sound of flesh on flesh. 

“Stop it, both of you.” He says. “Gladio, leave. I’ll deal with him.”

Gladio takes one last look at Prompto’s fallen form, his still shocked gaze, the way his lower lip is trembling like a toddler's, and he leaves. 

Ignis finds him on the balcony if the flat, feet dangling over the edge, staring up at the early morning dawn. 

“He’s sleeping.” Ignis says. “He says he didn’t mean it. He’ll apologise in the morning.”

“I don’t want his apology.” Gladio growls. “He’s right.”

Ignis draws a sharp breath. “Gladio-”

“He is.” Gladio insists, even though the admission brings tears to his own eyes. “I should have done more, I should have been there, we shouldn’t have let him go alone.”

Ignis doesn’t know whether Gladio is talking about the day Noctis died, or the day Noctis left. 

“But we did.” Ignis replies. “And there is nothing we can do to prevent it now. Noctis made his choice. He had a duty-”

“I had a duty!” 

There is some silence after that. 

“I’m leaving.” 

“I thought you might.” Ignis admits. “There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.” Ignis takes a breath. “Be safe. Do come back eventually. We need you here.”

The two of them, (well, one of them) watch the sunrise, and by the time Prompto wakes mid-afternoon, hungover, and horribly, horribly guilty, Gladio is gone. 

Several years pass. It takes three of them for Prompto to finally kick the habit, and take up smoking instead. It takes another year for Ignis to nag him off those as well, but he does in the end. 

Still, it is in the cold chill of an early morning that he misses the way the smoke would curl around his tongue, the feel of a cigarette in his fingers, the way his hand would twitch for a bottle. 

He doesn’t tell Ignis that if he got drunk enough, if he smoked enough, he would see Noctis, his face disapproving, but there, there over the brim of his glass or in the wisps of the smoke. He has a feeling Ignis knows anyway. 

Cid dies peacefully in his sleep a year after Gladio leaves, and this is the one and only time they see him, in the crowd of hundreds of people gathered for his funeral. Prompto holds Cindy when she cries at the reception, but she is the one to pull away, and get on the podium and deliver the funniest eulogy anyone has ever heard. 

Ignis feels an ache in his bones when he reaches his forties, and he laughs so much at the feeling that his attendants fetch Prompto to find out what is wrong. 

They are growing old, and Prompto watches as Ignis ends up with a walking stick, and wonders would Noct would have said. 

Prompto, on his own part, cannot fire a gun without a tremor running through his hand again, but whether that is from the PTSD, the drinking or the ever advancing age, he doesn’t know. 

They are growing old, and Gladio returns on the eve of Prompto’s 40th birthday. 

He examines Prompto, takes in every inch of him that has changed in the years spent apart, take in how his hands are still when he holds his glass of sparkling water, but shake ever so slightly when he speaks. Prompto takes in Gladio’s new scars, the hastily wrapped present, and the flecks of grey in his hair. 

They have a soppy, tear stained reunion in the middle of the party, and neither of them care who sees it. 

Prompto keeps trying to apologise for the rest of his life. Gladio will spend the rest of his life making up for leaving. 

Iris is married on a beautifully sunny April day, to a hunter who Gladio is pretty sure only loves her because of her badassery, but he can tell that Iris’s new husband is absolutely besotted with his little sister, and he genuinely smiles at the man when he gives Iris away. The poor guy only looks slightly terrified. 

The bride herself is radiant; she’s grown up into one of the most stunning women Gladio has ever seen, but then again, he supposes he is biased. He dances with his little sister in place of his father, and tries to hide his tears when the couple leave at the end of the night. 

“You big baby.” Prompto teases. 

“Oh shut up.”

Iris gives birth a year later to a small baby boy with her dark hair and her husband's blue eyes, and she calls him Noctis. Gladio is the godfather, and when he is handed his nephew for the first time, he promises to himself that for this Noct, he will be there. He won’t fail again. 

For the first few years of the kid’s life, he cannot pronounce the letter T, and his name is therefore ‘Noc’. It hurts slightly less to say aloud. 

This Noctis grows up in a household with parents that loving in a smothering way, without a destiny on his head, and the knowledge that wherever he goes, his big scary Uncle Gladio will have his back, along with his other uncles that aren’t really uncles. Prompto teaches him to shoot, and Ignis tells him stories.

He really likes the ones about the  _ real  _ Noctis, the one that made the light come back, the one who can use magic and warp and destroy the monsters that his mummy fights. It makes Gladio’s heart ache to see this chubby little kid swing a wooden practice sword around the dusty yard. 

The years slip through their fingers like silk, both unbearably long, and yet also too fast for them to count. Prompto, to his horror, goes grey first, the blonde being barely streaked with grey before it’s fully silver. Ignis ends up practically running the entire city from his wheelchair, and still not taking enough days off. Gladio fights, but less and less each year, and eventually pretty much retires without saying so, migrating between the city, and his sister’s house, which is now full of children piling over each other to hang off him every time he visits. Gladio sees the laughter lines around his sister’s eyes, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, it was worth it. 

The three of them gather for young Noctis’s wedding when it comes, as it inevitably does, in the autumn. They are all unofficially the grandparents in the party, being almost as old as Cid was when they first met him, and gods, was it really that long ago?

When Noctis and his bride exchange their vows, Iris is the only one that really knows why all three of them are crying. 

“Gladio cries at weddings.” Prompto sniffles. “How did we not know this before?”

“Shut up.” Gladio responds, shoving him

“Manners.” Ignis says, distractedly. 

“Sorry.” Gladio says, dabbing at his eyes. “ _ Please  _ shut up.”

They don’t think about dying. To be honest, they never thought that they would get to this, to aching joints and six-monthly funerals and grandchildren. 

They visit Noctis’s grave, sometimes together, sometimes separately. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes there is only silence. 

It doesn’t feel like he’s there. They buried their friend in an isolated meadow decades ago, and anything that was once Noctis has long since been reclaimed by the earth itself. 

It seems like the wind whispers to them, on occasion. I’m sorry, it tells them. I’m sorry it had to be like this, I’m sorry that it ended this way, I’m sorry you can’t have him back, I’m sorry that the light returned but he did not, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. 

Sometimes Noctis whispers to them. The words are never clear, but they know him, they would know him anywhere, a voice made of memories and broken promises. 

The remains of Prince Noctis’s Kingsguard die within a year of each other. Fate is cruel, but she is also kind. Prompto does not outlive the others for longer than a month. He does not want to. 

The light on the other side is almost blinding, like the light was the day Noctis died. 

Prompto looks twenty again, and with every step he takes he feels the years fall away, the pain and aches gone as if they were never there. It doesn’t matter to him, because there is someone ahead, someone so achingly familiar waiting for him. 

He doesn’t realise he begins running until he screeches to a halt in front of him. 

He smiles at him, and Prompto begins to cry. 

“You took your time.” Noctis says, holding out a hand, and Prompto’s heart aches. He looks twenty again. He looks like Noctis. “Come on. They’re waiting.” 

Ahead, Prompto can see Ignis and Gladio’s outlines, and they are so familiar, even after all these years. They are what they looked like the day they left Insomnia. Beyond: a figure in a white dress, and further, a regal figure in a swirling cape, no walking stick in sight.

“Yeah.” Prompto replies thickly, taking Noctis’s hand. “I’m right behind you, buddy.”

  
Light spills up ahead, and together, they make their way forward, hands held tightly until there is no more hand to hold. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed, or check out my other FFXV fics both here and on tumblr at actualenjolras1832.tumblr.com


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